


Thick Woolen Socks

by IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, If you skip the ending, Knitting, M/M, Mirror of Erised, Nerds in Love, One Shot, Or Fluff and Smut, Smut, Summer of 1899, There are instructions for how to do that in the notes if you don't do angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:42:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22479625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis/pseuds/IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis
Summary: Albus wasn’t lying when he told Harry what he saw in the Mirror of Erised. He just neglected to say who was wearing the socks.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Comments: 14
Kudos: 64





	Thick Woolen Socks

**Author's Note:**

> Like every Summer of 1899 fic, this features a 16 year old and a 17 year old - and like any E rated story, there is sex - hence the underage tag
> 
> Suppose you are trying to avoid angst… in order to stay in the Summer of 1899 world, when there is still a possibility that the duel never happens, you can stop reading when you get to the section break, marked +++  
> Ta-da! Fluff and Smut, verrrry light on the angst
> 
> Or - keep reading for the denouement -
> 
> This was inspired by a prompt given by [comradecourt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/comradecourt/pseuds/comradecourt), who suggested that Albus saw socks in the mirror because of Gellert leaving his socks on during sex  
> On that note, check out their excellent Grindeldore sock-fic: [Nothing But Socks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17766851)
> 
> I do not own Harry Potter, or any part thereof, in any way, shape, or form. JKRowling is the goddess of this universe.  
> I particularly do not own the words in italics, which are taken directly from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s [or, in the US, Sorcerer’s] Stone, chapter 12

**July 1899**

Albus appeared at Gellert’s bedside to find Gellert propped up in bed on one elbow, bare shoulders peeking above the blanket, his wand pointed at Albus’ chest.  
“Gellert,” he said calmly.

Gellert sighed and put his wand back under his pillow.  
“You need to work on –“  
“Silent apparition, I know. Sorry I woke you.”

“I couldn’t wait up, Albus. You didn’t tell me –“  
“I told you I would be late.”  
“Yes – three and a half hours ago!”  
Was it really? Albus cast a Tempus, and Gellert pointed at it.  
“My mistake – four hours.”

“I’m so sorry, Gellert. Should I just – go back home?”  
Gellert rolled his eyes. “Don’t be an idiot. I’m awake now.”

He pulled back the covers and Albus stalled for a moment, his eyes caught on Gellert’s bare thigh. He slowly trailed his eyes up Gellert’s body – hip, abdomen, chest – all that bare skin. He met Gellert’s eyes and swallowed.

Gellert’s lip twitched in amusement. “It’s as if you’ve never seen me before.”  
Albus bit his lip.

“You are getting in, aren’t you?” Gellert asked, sounding slightly uncertain.  
“Yes, sorry. You’re just so –“ Albus shook his head and pulled off his shirt as quickly as he could, then hesitated over unbuttoning his trousers. Gellert pulled his wand back out and vanished what was left of Albus’ clothing.  
“Oh, I see,” Gellert said with a confident smile. “Someone is ready the moment he sees me.”  
Albus blushed. 

“Come here. I have missed you.”  
Albus got into bed and pulled the blanket over him.  
“You just saw me this morning.”  
“You left for your house more than 12 hours ago.”

Albus barely had time to enjoy the reminder that Gellert needed him as much as he needed Gellert before Gellert was on top of him, kissing him, pinning him down.  
“I love you,” Gellert gasped between kisses. “I love you.”

Albus smiled up at Gellert. “You are perfect.”  
“You don’t mean that.”  
“I do. I wouldn’t change anything about you.”

“You would change my opinion on the use of non-magical creature ingredients in potions.”  
“Beeswax, Gellert. It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t have any magical properties.”  
“Does water have magical properties? Or is it just a medium –“

“I can’t believe we are discussing this again. Water is elemental.”  
“You are a half-blood, Albus. How do you know so little about Muggles? Water is not an element. Carbon is an element. Gold is an element. Earth, Air, and Water are certainly not elements. If we are going to persuade the Muggles of our superiority, then we need to not appear as idiots to them when it comes to their science.”

“Exhibiting our magical power should be enough.”  
“It should be, but it won’t be.”  
“No?” Albus asked, placing a hand on Gellert’s chest and muttering an incantation designed to make Gellert feel as if there were a dozen hands on him, all over, all at once. 

“Aaaah!” Gellert cried out. “Albuuuusssss!”  
He began writhing, his back arched, and then he gasped, “Finite Incantum!” and fell onto Albus.  
Albus ran his fingers down Gellert’s back, and he flinched.  
“You didn’t like it?”  
“Gods! It was outstanding. But it was too much. I – too much… How did you – who taught that to you?”

 _Who taught that to him?_ Did Gellert think - ?  
“I have never... You are the first…”  
Gellert propped himself up and looked down at Albus.  
“Shh… Liebling, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have implied – I want you to be mine only, and sometimes -”

Albus sighed. “I invented it myself, anyway.”  
“You – Albus! That’s outstanding! Such a complicated spell, and so – intense, so effective,” he said, leaning back down to suck on Albus’ neck, then his shoulder.  
Albus moaned, and Gellert moved down to lap at a nipple.  
“I – gods! Then why did you – fuck! Gellert! The Finite –“

Gellert pulled back and laid his hand on Albus’ chest.  
“I didn’t want to come so quickly, without you even touching me.”  
Albus smiled. So, the spell _had_ done all he intended.  
“Hmm… Well I do mean to make you come, but I plan to do so much more than simply touch you,” Albus said, pulling Gellert down and kissing him.

Albus felt something smooth and cool bump against his shoulder, and he broke the kiss to see what it was. A small pot of oil was floating next to them. Albus laughed.  
“Already? No, I’m taking my time with you tonight.”  
“You could take your time with me afterwards…” Gellert suggested, dragging his erection slowly against Albus’ and licking his ear.  
“Gellert – Yessss – Gods!”

Albus threw Gellert off him, lay down between his legs, and immediately began working his arse with his tongue. Gellert began to touch himself, but Albus batted his hand away. He pulled away his mouth long enough to growl, “Mine,” and grabbed Gellert’s cock himself. After a few minutes he held out his hand and the hovering pot of oil flew to him. He liberally covered his fingers, and began slowly stretching Gellert with first one finger, then a second, all the time licking his thighs, his balls, anything he could reach.

Gellert began to moan in the way that he did when Albus found his prostate, and Albus smiled. He lifted up his head enough to see Gellert’s face.  
“I love you.”

“What?” Gellert asked suddenly, grabbing Albus’ arm. Albus, startled, removed his fingers, and Gellert sat up. “Did you say –“  
Oh! He had. Gellert had been saying it for days, but Albus had been so careful not to say it before now. It was a bit frightening, the power Gellert had over him already. Albus was afraid to give him more. And yet – 

“Albus?”  
Albus wiped his face off and sat up. Gellert looked so frightened and hopeful all at the same time. During the day, he was all confidence and near ruthlessness, but at night…  
Albus smiled hesitantly. “I love you, Gellert Grindelwald.”

Gellert leapt on Albus, and kissed him on his mouth, and his jaw, and his neck, and his shoulder.  
Albus pushed him onto his back again. He reapplied the oil and felt to see if Gellert was ready.  
“Please, Albus. I need you!”

Albus grabbed ahold of one of Gellert’s legs, threw it over his shoulder, and –  
“Gellert. Are you wearing socks?”  
“Albus – please –“  
“Sorry, it’s just. You are naked in bed in July – so far normal - and you are wearing thick wool socks.”  
Gellert pulled his leg down off of Albus.  
“My feet get cold at night!” he protested indignantly.

Albus didn’t know why this was distracting him so badly, except that this affectation, this – vulnerability? – was so unexpected. 

Albus got out of bed. Gellert had tucked his feet under the blanket, and Albus pulled it back. There was something absurdly sweet about it - this astonishingly gorgeous boy, glowing in the candlelight, perfectly, beautifully bare, aside from these socks. These pale green socks with a peacock worked into each of them. Albus laughed.

“Do not laugh at my socks, Albus Dumbledore, or you can leave!”  
Albus grasped one of Gellert’s feet in his hand.  
“I would not dare to laugh at my boyfriend’s outstanding socks,” Albus answered, massaging Gellert’s feet, first one, and then the other.

“I would go so far to say it would be worth learning to knit, knowing that you would think of me every night that you wore the socks I made for you.”  
Gellert pulled Albus back into bed with him. “No. I am taking you with me wherever I go. I will not need a reminder, because every night you will be in my bed.”

Gellert grabbed the pot of oil and poured some on his hand.  
“You did a marvellous job preparing me, but I think that we still have to get you ready?”  
Albus nodded wordlessly. He was still thinking of sharing a bed with Gellert every night. Gellert wanted him to –

He felt Gellert’s hand, warm and slippery, grasping his cock, slathering it with oil.  
“Gellert – please! I need – I want –“  
Gellert began to get up, as if he were going to climb onto Albus.  
Albus sat up and pushed on Gellert’s shoulder, holding him down. 

“No. No, I want to bend you in half, drive you into the bed, make you scream.”  
Gellert’s eyes widened with anticipation.  
Albus knelt between Gellert’s legs.  
“I want your legs on my chest,” he said, pulling Gellert’s legs up as he said it, “and your feet up above my shoulders.”

Albus positioned himself against Gellert’s entrance, and began pressing in, stopping periodically, waiting for a nod from Gellert to indicate that Albus could keep going, waiting for the tension in his face to subside a bit. Albus bottomed out, and almost right away Gellert groaned, “Move, Albus. Gods! Don’t wait – please - ”

This feeling of being inside of Gellert – it was hard to believe they had only been doing this for a week. Albus didn’t think that he could live without it – warm and tight, yes, but more than that being _in Gellert_. Being – part of him, practically. Their bodies, connected in this most intimate way, and at the same time, this pleasure that was like nothing else he had ever felt before – intoxicating. Gellert was intoxicating. He was –

“Gellert!”  
perfect, and  
“I –“  
beautiful, and  
“love you!”  
so, so powerful – extraordinarily powerful. He was -  
“Everything… I need - ” Albus found himself saying out loud, without meaning to.

He leaned back, and Gellert bent his legs, placing his feet on Albus shoulders. Those marvelous, ridiculous socks.  
“Albus –“ Gellert pleaded. “Albus –“  
Albus grasped Gellert’s cock with one hand, and his hip with the other.  
“Yes! Tell me –“  
“I love you. I love you – Gellert!!”

Gellert came with such force that it shot over his chest, past his shoulder, and onto his pillow. The sight of it pushed Albus over just as much as the feel of Gellert’s muscles tightening around him as he came.  
Gellert’s feet fell off of Albus’ shoulders, and Albus pulled out and rolled off of Gellert.

“I love those socks,” Albus said, and Gellert laughed.  
“I don’t think the socks can be credited with the sex being so good.”  
“No?” Albus asked, squeezing Gellert’s hand. It had been especially good. He was still spinning.  
“Hmm… maybe. Did you mean it? About learning to knit for me?”  
“I would do anything for you,” Albus said, before he had time to think about what he was saying.

Gellert propped up on one elbow and pushed some stray strands of hair off of Albus’ sweaty forehead. “You would not,” he said quietly.  
Albus sighed and looked at him. “Maybe I would. I want to. Let me – try?”

Gellert bent down and kissed him.  
“Well, let’s see. Can we start with you spending the night?”  
“As long as I’m out of here by sunrise, yes.”  
“Every night?”

“Roll over,” Albus said, giving Gellert a little push. Gellert rolled away from him, and Albus curled up behind him, holding him tight. Albus sucked on Gellert’s shoulder for a few seconds before replying, “Every night.”

“I love you, Albus. Always.”  
“I love you too, Gellert.”

Albus held Gellert as Gellert murmured about what life would be like when they could live together, be together all the time… until Gellert’s breathing evened out. Albus stifled a laugh. Gellert had talked himself to sleep. 

Albus had never been happier. He hoped that Gellert meant it, about going with him everywhere, about being in his bed.  
“I will always love you, Gellert Grindelwald,” he whispered to the sleeping boy. “My heart is yours forever.”

+++++++

**December 1991  
92½ years later**

Once again, the boy was lingering in front of the Mirror. Albus told himself that it was necessary, that the boy understanding the nature of the Mirror was the last defence standing between Voldemort and the Stone. But he didn’t like it – it felt wrong somehow, to bait him like this.  
Albus had often wondered about the creator of the Mirror – was it sadism or masochism that had driven them to create such a dark artefact? As far as Albus could tell, his latest modification to the Mirror would allow it to be put to good use for the first time in centuries.  
He sighed. The draw of what a person wanted and could not have – it was too much to ask of anyone, much less an eleven-year old boy. It was time and past time to intervene.

_“So,” said Dumbledore, slipping off the desk to sit on the floor with Harry, “you, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised.  
…  
“It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts… However this mirror will give us neither knowledge nor truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.”  
…  
“Sir – Professor Dumbledore? … What do you see when you look in the mirror?”  
“I? I see myself holding a pair of thick woolen socks.”_

After Harry left, Albus lingered in front of the Mirror, transfixed by what he saw. It changed as he aged, but some things had always held constant – himself with Gellert, the two of them together, happy and unencumbered… Gellert wearing some ridiculous wool socks… and Albus saying, “I would do anything for you.”

In the beginning, when he first found the Mirror, Albus had seen that night of firsts: the first time he said ‘I love you’ to Gellert, the first time they had spent the night together – the first time he had seen Gellert in his sleeping socks on that absurdly warm July night, the first time Gellert had proposed that they travel together, that they be together always.  
He saw them laughing together in bed, and making love. He saw Gellert’s sock covered feet pressed up against his chest. He saw how in love they were, how sure of each other.  
It was a perfect reproduction of that memory – nothing altered because everything about that night had been perfect – had been everything he could desire.

As time passed, his desires changed. He no longer wanted to return to that night, but wanted all that had never followed. He saw their older selves having sex – sometimes in his quarters at Hogwarts, other times elsewhere, anywhere, but always Gellert was wearing socks – socks Albus had knit for him.  
Other times he saw them sitting at a desk together, arguing, discussing, writing together, one of Gellert’s sock clad feet rubbing up Albus’ leg. He saw them reading together on a sofa, or in bed, Gellert wearing a dressing gown and thick wool handknit socks. 

Tonight – tonight he saw the two of them on his sofa in his quarters at the school, Gellert stretched out with his sock-covered feet in Albus’ lap. Albus took off his glasses, set his knitting aside on the table, and began rubbing Gellert’s feet, teasing Gellert that he was going to pull off his socks, both of them knowing he wouldn’t.  
‘I would do anything for you,’ mirror Albus was saying.  
‘I know,’ mirror Gellert replied.

Albus closed his eyes. He reminded himself out loud, “It isn’t real. None of this is real.”

He turned away from the Mirror and headed back to his quarters. He sat for a moment looking at the fire, then, against his better judgment, went to his bedroom, and knelt down to open a trunk that was pushed up against the north wall. It was filled with socks, pair after pair of brightly coloured, gaudy wool socks. Two pair for each year from 1905 to 1950, knit by Albus and owled to Gellert – one pair sent on his birthday, and the other on Christmas. Each pair packed away in this trunk, never worn, after being sent back still wrapped, with no reply. 

Albus had been most surprised that Gellert didn’t start keeping them once he was imprisoned – surely Nurmengard was cold in the winter, and where else would he get new socks? But still Gellert stubbornly refused them. Then in 1950, Gellert finally wrote a note to Albus. On the outside of the wrapper of the still unlooked at socks, in an impersonal block print, these eight words: “Is this what you think trying looks like?”

Albus had kept the note in the trunk, on top of the collection of socks. He picked it up and ran his finger lightly over the words. “You were right, Gellert. You were right about me. There were things I would not do. Even for you.” 

Fawkes flew down, perched on Albus’ shoulder, and rubbed the top of his head against Albus’ cheek. Albus reached up and stroked the bird, receiving the comfort he never felt like he deserved.  
“Yes, I know. I should get rid of the trunk. But you know why I can’t, Fawkes.” 

Albus put the letter back in the trunk and closed it. He stood, Fawkes still on his shoulder, and sat in his favourite chair by the fire. He picked up his knitting – never socks anymore. He was an old man. Whatever else might be his deepest desire, he would settle for the things he knit to be worn.  
Now, he knit scarves – the thick scarves in house colours given to each new student. He especially enjoyed knitting in Slytherin green and silver. It was cathartic to see all of those young Wizards and Witches wearing the scarves he had knit for them, scarves they would have refused if only they knew who had made them.

**Author's Note:**

> Albus strikes me as a hand knitter. It is so relaxing and meditative - not doing it by hand surrenders more than half the point of knitting.  
> And does setting up some needles to magically make something for you while you do something 'more important' really say 'I love you'?
> 
> As a knitter, I have spent entirely too much time (while writing this, anyway) thinking about what knitting magical socks would entail, if knitting by hand rather than magically.  
> I think that Albus would probably knit his super elaborate socks first, and then spell them to animate them only after they were complete. This is one of those instances when I am jealous of magic - it would be amazing to be able to animate my knitting.  
> File under: Magic - not just good for sex
> 
> And as a note that will probably only make sense to my fellow knitters, circular needles were not available when Albus started knitting, so he would be using dpns. But there can be advantages to that, tbh  
> Or - we could imagine that Albus, who was clever in so many ways, is the person we have to thank for the creation of circular needles?  
> Hmmm.... that might need to be a new HC


End file.
